Constructivism

**Constructivism** is a psychological theory of knowledge (epistemology) [1] which argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from their experiences. Constructivism is not a specific pedagogy, although it is often confused with Constructionism, an educational theory developed by Seymour Papert. Piaget's theory of Constructivist learning has had wide ranging impact on learning theories and teaching methods in education and is an underlying theme of many education reform movements. Research support for constructivist teaching techniques has been mixed, with some research supporting these techniques and other research contradicting those results.

Jerome Bruner  has been a leader in the establishment of cognitive psychology as an alternative to the behaviourist theories that dominated psychology in the first half of the 20th century. Bruner’s cognitive approach to his work in childhood learning and perception has made him a key figure in educational reform in the United States and Britain.  Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner demonstrated how thought processes could be subdivided into three distinct modes of reasoning. While Piaget related each mode to a specific period of childhood development, Bruner saw each mode as dominant during each developmental phase, but present and accessible throughout. Bruner’s model of human development as a combination of enactive skills (manipulating objects, spatial awareness), iconic skills (visual recognition, the ability to compare and contrast) and symbolic skills (abstract reasoning) has influenced psychological and educational thought over the past 50 years. A constant theme in Bruner’s work is that education is a process of discovery. As a structural theorist, Bruner believes that information or knowledge is most effectively gained by personal discovery, and then classified enactively, iconically or symbolically. Bruner advocated that if students were allowed to pursue concepts on their own they would gain a better understanding. Within the education system, a teacher would then engage students in active dialogue and guide them when necessary so that students would progressively build their own knowledge base, rather than be ‘taught’. New information would be classified and understood based on knowledge already gained   Bruner’s theory of how children construct knowledge involves three basic modes of instruction. In their very early years, young children rely extensively upon enactive modes to learn. As a child learns to roll over, sit up or walk, they are learning to do so through their own actions. While this mode is present in people of all ages it is more dominant when a person is young. An example of this dominance is the way a young person can often learn to play a musical instrument more quickly than an older person. Iconic representation normally becomes dominant during the next stage of childhood years. Children learn to understand what pictures and diagrams are and how to do arithmetic using numbers and without counting objects. Later – usually around adolescence - the symbolic mode of learning becomes most dominant. Students can understand and work with concepts that are abstract. According to Bruner, developmental growth involves mastering each of the increasingly more complex modes - enactive to iconic to symbolic. Mastering this incorporates becoming more skilled in translating between each mode. An example of this sort of translation could be a discussion (symbolic mode) of what students had learned from an experiment (iconic mode). An implication of Bruner’s developmental theories is that children should be provided with study materials, activities, and tools that are matched to and capitalise on their developing cognitive capabilities. For example, a teacher wanting to help children learn about dinosaurs could use all three modes. Students could be asked to construct models of dinosaurs (enactive); they might watch a film about, or involving, dinosaurs (iconic); or they could consult reference texts and then discuss their findings (symbolic).
 * Implications and Applications of Bruner’s Theories **

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a biologist who originally studied molluscs but moved into the study of the development of children's understanding, through observing them and talking and listening to them while they worked on exercises he set. He proposed that children's thinking does not develop entirely smoothly: instead, there are certain points at which it "takes off" and moves into completely new areas and capabilities. He saw these transitions as taking place at about 18 months, 7 years and 11 or 12 years. This has been taken to mean that before these ages children are not capable (no matter how bright) of understanding things in certain ways Piaget outlined several principles for building cognitive structures. During all development stages, the child experiences his or her environment using whatever mental maps he or she has constructed so far. If the experience is a repeated one, it fits easily–or is assimilated–into the child’s cognitive structure so that he or she maintains mental “equilibrium.” If the experience is different or new, the child loses equilibrium, and alters his or her cognitive structure to accommodate the new conditions. This way, the child erects more and more adequate cognitive structures.
 * Jean Piaget **

(Birth-2 yrs)  || Differentiates self from objects Recognises self as agent of action and begins to act intentionally: e.g. pulls a string to set mobile in motion or shakes a rattle to make a noise Achieves object permanence: realises that things continue to exist even when no longer present to the sense || (2-7 years) ** || Learns to use language and to represent objects by images and words Thinking is still egocentric: has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others Classifies objects by a single feature: e.g. groups together all the red blocks regardless of shape or all the square blocks regardless of colour || (7-11 years) ** || Can think logically about objects and events Achieves conservation of number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9) Classifies objects according to several features and can order them in series along a single dimension such as size. || (11 years and up) ** || Can think logically about abstract propositions and test hypotheses systemtically Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems ||
 * Stages of Cognitive Development **
 * **<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sensori-motor **<span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Verdana', 'sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-SG;">
 * **<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pre-operational
 * **<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Concrete operational
 * **<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Formal operational

<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The four stages <span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">// Adapted From Wikipedia.org // ===<span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Calibri', 'sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Preoperational Period <span style="font-family: 'Calibri', 'sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">  === <span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: 'Calibri', 'sans-serif'; msoansilanguage: EN; msoasciithemefont: minor-latin; msohansithemefont: minor-latin;">The Preoperational stage -second of four stages of cognitive development -occurs between about the ages of 2 and 4. -although there is an advancement in progress, there are still limitations such as being unable to distinguish his own views and others and **animism**. Animism is the belief that inanimate objects are capable of actions and have lifelike qualities. An example is a child believing that the sidewalk was mad and made them fall down. <span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Occurs between about the ages of 4 and 7. Children tend to become very curious and ask many questions; begin the use of primitive reasoning. There is an emergence in the interest of reasoning and wanting to know why things are the way they are.
 * __ Sensori-Motor __**
 * <span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">** Sub-Stage ** || <span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">** Age ** || <span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">** Description ** ||
 * 1 //Simple Reflexes// || Birth-1 month || Coordination of sensation and action through reflexive behaviors ||
 * 2 //First habits and primary circular reactions phase// || 1-4 months || Coordination of sensation and two types of schemes: habits (reflex) and primary circular reactions (reproduction of an event that initially occurred by chance). Main focus is still on the infant's body. ||
 * 3 //Secondary circular reactions phase// || 4-8 months || Development of habits. Infants become more object-oriented, moving beyond self-preoccupation; repeat actions that bring interesting or pleasurable results. ||
 * 4 //Coordination of secondary circular reactions stage// || 8-12 months || Coordination of vision and touch--hand-eye coordination; coordination of schemes and intentionality. ||
 * 5 //Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity// || 12-18 months || Infants become intrigued by the many properties of objects and by the many things they can make happen to objects; they experiment with new behaviour. ||
 * 6 //Internalization of Schemes// || 18-24 months || "Infants develop the ability to use primitive symbols and form enduring mental representations. ||
 * <span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">** The Intuitive Thought Substage **

Piaget called it the intuitive substage because children realize they have a vast amount of knowledge but they are unaware of how they know it. **Centration** and **conservation** are both involved in preoperational thought.

Centration - Act of focusing all attention on one characteristic compared to the others - Noticed in conservation; the awareness that altering a substance's appearance does not change its basic properties. Children at this stage are unaware of conservation. They are unable to grasp the concept that a certain liquid can stay the same regardless of the container shape.

In Piaget's most famous task, a child is represented with two identical beakers containing the same amount of liquid. The child usually notes that the beakers have the same amount of liquid. When one of the beakers is poured into a taller and thinner container, children who are typically younger than 7 or 8 years old say that the two beakers now contain a different amount of liquid. The child simply focuses on the height and width of the container compared to the general concept. Piaget believes that if a child fails the conservation-of-liquid task, it is a sign that they are at the preoperational stage of cognitive development. The **Concrete operational stage** is the third of four stages of cognitive development in Piaget's theory. This stage, which follows the **Preoperational stage**, occurs between the ages of 7 and 11 years and is characterized by the appropriate use of logic. Important processes during this stage are: ** Seriation ** —the ability to sort objects in an order according to size, shape, or any other characteristic. For example, if given different-shaded objects they may make a color gradient.
 * Concrete operational stage **
 * Transitivity ** - The ability to recognize logical relationships among elements in a serial order (For example, If A is taller than B, and B is taller than C, then A must be taller than C).
 * Classification ** —the ability to name and identify sets of objects according to appearance, size or other characteristic, including the idea that one set of objects can include another.
 * Decentering ** —where the child takes into account multiple aspects of a problem to solve it. For example, the child will no longer perceive an exceptionally wide but short cup to contain less than a normally-wide, taller cup.
 * Reversibility ** —the child understands that numbers or objects can be changed, then returned to their original state. For this reason, a child will be able to rapidly determine that if 4+4 equals t, t−4 will equal 4, the original quantity.
 * Conservation ** —understanding that quantity, length or number of items is unrelated to the arrangement or appearance of the object or items.
 * Elimination of Egocentrism ** —the ability to view things from another's perspective (even if they think incorrectly). For instance, show a child a comic in which Jane puts a doll under a box, leaves the room, and then Melissa moves the doll to a drawer, and Jane comes back. A child in the concrete operations stage will say that Jane will still think it's under the box even though the child knows it is in the drawer

The formal operational period is the fourth and final of the periods of cognitive development in Piaget's theory. This stage, which follows the Concrete Operational stage, commences at around 11–15 years of age (puberty) and continues into adulthood. In this stage - Begin to think abstractly, reason logically and draw conclusions from information - Able to apply all these processes to hypothetical situations. This becomes evident in the adolescent's problem solving. The logical quality of the adolescent's thought is when children are more likely to solve problems in a trial-and-error fashion. Adolescents begin to devise plans to solve problems and systematically testing solutions - Using hypothetical-deductive reasoning - They develop hypotheses or best guesses, - Deduce the best path to follow in solving the problem.
 * Formal operational stage **

Summary [|**Bruner - Constructivism**] 1. Community as learning ground 2. Cognitive apprenticeship 3. Building knowledge - Constructivism in learning.
 * __//Videos//__**

media type="youtube" key="F00R3pOXzuk" height="344" width="425" John Abbott discusses the theory of constructivism in learning.